Review: Raven, Injustice - Gods Among Us

            For a game so focused on DC Comics’ Justice League, it’s surprising that the Teen Titans' Raven would make it onto the initial roster of Injustice: Gods Among Us over veteran Leaguers like Zatanna and Black Canary. Nevertheless, Raven makes for an interesting entry into the fighting game.

            Known as an empath, Raven’s powers have always been relatively difficult to adapt and in Injustice: Gods Among Us they come across more generically as mystical powers. While fighters like Wonder Woman and Catwoman are largely focused on melee assaults, Raven is largely dependant on her magical abilities which transform Raven into a more long-range fighter. She is able to generate projectiles, teleport and bind enemies without having to come into close contact with them. In this way, she’s one of the more defensive characters in the game as well as one of the more technical fighters. In order to utilize her properly, gamers will have to master her moveset. The mystical aspect of her abilities continues over to her super move where she teleports her opponent to a demonic realm where her father Trigon blasts them with a powerful beam. While it’s not one of the more spectacular super moves, it is both creative and pays homage to the character’s background.

            Raven’s status as a Titan carries over to the narrative and is presented as Cyborg’s partner as part of Superman’s Regime. Her narrative largely hinges on the ‘Evil Raven’ trope we’ve seen so often before so it leaves the audience with a feeling of déjà vu. Raven’s appearance is arguably one of the worst in the game. While her default costume pays tribute to her classic look and has a lot of texture to it, developers failed to capture Raven’s unique facial structure and, in their attempts, generated a cringingly masculine visage for Raven. In essence, Raven looks like a really bad drag queen. Since NetherRealm has a history of difficulty capturing the female face, it’s no surprise that one (or several) of the women in the game would suffer from the Mortal Kombat manface syndrome. That said, her chiselled features are much less distracting in her alternate costume as she is presented as demonic in that form. NetherRealm does at least deserve points for making an attempt to capture a different sound for Raven’s voice that fits the style of text used in her earliest appearances versus the emotionless gothic voice she was given in the cartoon.

            Teen Titans fans will no doubt rejoice over Raven’s presence in the game. She’s fairly similar to her comic book counterpart and her cartoon adaptation. Her moveset will also prove to be lots of fun for those willing to work at perfecting their combat with her. While she’s not one of the best females in the game, she’s at least interesting enough to keep more than a handful of people selecting her as their favourite… they’ll just have to ignore the fact that she looks like a man.

Grade: B-